Spinner's Nightmare
by pigbert
Summary: Spinner's subconscious affects his dreams, and it's not too happy with his behavior since discovering that Marco is gay. Inspired by "A Christmas Carol".


Spinner's Nightmare  
  
by pigbert  
  
Warning: Contains some violent imagery and some racial slurs. The author's intent is not to glamourize these elements, but to shock the reader into recognizing how repugnant these things truly are.   
  
##############  
  
His bathroom graffiti about Marco was spreading like wildfire throughout the school. Spinner was sitting on the john when he overheard voices.   
  
"Hey, come look at this," a deep voice said, "I always knew there was something strange about Del Rossi."  
  
"Geez! What's wrong with this country?" an agitated voice said, "Everybody's turning gay."  
  
"Don't worry," the deep voice replied, "we'll teach this little queer a lesson that'll keep the other fags huddled in their closets."  
  
Spinner wanted to see who was speaking, because he didn't recognize the voices. But when he peeked over the top of the stall, no one was there! "That's weird," he thought to himself.  
  
Spinner exited the stall and walked over to the urinals to look at his graffiti. He felt kind of ashamed of it now. He went over and grabbed some papertowels and ran some water over them. "Might as well clean this up before anyone else sees it," he muttered.  
  
He began rubbing the wall. But when he took the papertowel away, the letters were still there. In fact, they stood out even darker than before. He rubbed them harder.....but it got worse. He was trying to erase his graffiti, but every time he rubbed it, the letters got bigger and bigger.   
  
"This is impossible," he thought as he stared at the 6 inch tall letters which veritably shouted "MARCO IS GAY" to the entire bathroom. Cleaning the letters off obviously wasn't working, so Spinner decided to write over them. He pulled out his trusty black pen and began scribbling lines back and forth over the message. But it just made it worse. New messages were appearing wherever he was tried to cross out his graffiti.  
  
Jimmy walked into the bathroom just then. He looked at the wall where Spinner was working. Jimmy looked at the pen in Spinner's hand, then at the wall. The color drained from his face.  
  
"You are such a ass!" he said as he turned around and stormed out the door.  
  
Spinner couldn't understand why Jimmy would be so upset, until he turned and looked at the wall again. Then he saw that all sorts of slurs had miraculously appeared in big black letters:  
  
"Dylan is a fag" "Jimmy is a nigger" "Paige is a whore" etc  
  
"Jimmy, you've got to believe me," Spinner yelled to the door, "I didn't write any of...." Then he looked at his original graffiti and realized that, actually, he had written some of it.  
  
##############  
  
Abandoning the strange self-vandalizing bathroom, Spinner ran down the hall only to find that Jay and his gang had Marco strung up by his feet in the middle of the cafeteria. They were hitting him with volleyballs.  
  
Each time a ball hit Marco his skin immediately bruised, turning horrible shades of black and purple. Spinner yelled at them to stop, but they taunted him saying: "We're only throwing volleyballs at him, we're not REALLY hurting him." But the bruises on Marco contradicted their words. Spinner ran off to find help.  
  
No one is in the cafeteria when Spinner came back with the principal. They walked down to the principal's office and watched the security video, along with all of his teachers. But the only thing on the video was Spinner and Marco playing volleyball -- in the cafeteria! On every point, Spinner viciously spiked the ball and hit Marco. Soon Marco was covered with bruises just like before. "Hey, that's not what happened," Spinner protested, "I didn't do it, it was Jay and those guys!"  
  
But his PE teacher spoke up, "I'm afraid that's not true. The video shows exactly what happened. I was there." All of the teachers were looking at Spinner...the way he imagined that people looked at a child molester or a murderer. Spinner ran out of the principal's office, and out of the school. He ran all the way home.  
  
At home, Spinner stayed up in his room, dreading that the phone was going to ring and that the principal would tell his parents what was on the videotape. But the phone never rang, and Spin eventually fell asleep. He got up early the next morning and sneaking out of the house before breakfast.  
  
##############  
  
No one else was in the locker room. Spinner had first period gym and some days, when he was feeling particularly hyper, he liked to come in early and hit the weight machines to tire himself out for the rest of the day. It kept him out of trouble.  
  
He'd just changed into his gym shorts and was headed over to take a piss when he stepped in something wet. "Damn!" he thought, "my only clean pair of socks." When he looked down at his foot to see what he had stepped in, his heart started to beat faster. It looked like blood.  
  
A large puddle of it was leaking under the row of lockers. He walked around to see what was on the other side. He suddenly became really, really scared although he would never admit THAT to anyone afterwards!  
  
At first he didn't see anything, but then he saw the big plastic trash can that they used for dirty towels, upside down at the end of the aisle. Slowly, he walked a little closer. His heart was beating hard against his sternum. He definitely saw two legs sticking out from underneath the trash can.  
  
His mind was racing! Should go find the pricipal? or a teacher? He was afraid to lift the trash can by himself and see what was inside. He turned to go get help, and that's when he saw it.  
  
Someone had spray-painted the word "FAG" on one of the lockers. Marco's locker. Spinner ran down the aisle to the trash can and lifted it.  
  
Spinner had never seen so much blood in his life. The white towels were soaked dark red. There were cuts and bruises all over Marco's body, but most of the blood appeared to be coming from the back of his head. Spinner dropped to his knees and bent over to see if Marco was still......breathing....he was....barely. Spinner ran from the locker room and into the hallway screaming, with Marco's blood all over his hands and knees and socks.  
  
"Help! Somebody call an ambulance! Help!" He had to find someone before Marco died. "HELP!"  
  
Spinner woke up in his bed, sweating and shaking.  
  
##############  
  
Jimmy and Craig and Marco were standing around talking before school, waiting for the first period warning bell. Spinner hadn't put in an appearance yet. Marco spotted him walking towards them at the end of the hall. He was staring at Marco.  
  
Marco prepared himself for whatever verbal (or physical) punch was about to be thrown his way. Spinner had been such an asshole for the last couple of weeks, ever since he found out that Marco was gay.  
  
Jimmy and Craig turned their head to see what Marco was looking at. Spinner just kept staring at Marco as he walked towards them. Spinner didn't say a word, he just walked up to Marco.....  
  
....and hugged him....for a long time. Jimmy and Craig didn't know what to think. Finally Spinner broke off the embrace and wiped his face. His friends looked at him with puzzled expressions. Was he crying?  
  
##############  
  
"I had a nightmare last night," Spinner started to explain, "I was in the locker room before gym class. And you were....somebody had...." he choked up. He hugged Marco again. Now he was definitely crying.  
  
"I'm so sorry," he sobbed into Marco's ear, "I didn't mean it. Any of it."  
  
"It's okay, Spin. I forgive you," Marco whispered back.  
  
"No!" Spinner pulled back shaking his head from side to side, "You can't do that."  
  
"Sure I can."  
  
"You don't understand," Spinner put his hands over his face trying to hide from his friends. "I've been trying to be mean to you...to hurt you...on purpose."   
  
With his back against the wall, Spinner slid down into a sitting position. "I need help. I don't know what's wrong with me." 


End file.
